Cairo

2016 Longlist

What do a crashed satellite, a string of bizarre murders and a time-warp conspiracy have in common?
Welcome to Cairo, where the future’s just a game and you’re already dead.
(from publisher)

About the Author

Louis Armand is a writer and visual artist who has lived in Prague since 1994. He has worked as an editor and publisher, and as a subtitles technician at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and is an editor of VLAK magazine. He is the author of six novels, including Cairo, Breakfast at Midnight, Menudo and Clair Obscur.

Librarian’s Comments

Louis Armand’s Cairo is an ambitious book. It has multiple narratives set over dozens of locations where time is fluid, human biology and computer technology are intertwined and everyone has weird names like Joblard, Shinwah and Johnny Fluoride. It is unflinching in its portrayal of human greed, urban decay and nasty rats. It attempts to put forward complicated ideas about technology, about space-time and about the fact that our own present is looking ever more like a dystopian future.